- North Carolina law requires the DMV to revoke the driver’s licenses of motor vehicle offenders who fail to appear in court or fail to pay the requisite fines, fees, and court costs
- Mandatory license revocation provides a powerful incentive to appear in court and pay fines, fees, and costs, but it also creates problems
- Members of both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly have been trying to find a way to solve those problems without undermining the incentive provided by the current law
Every year, hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians are charged with motor vehicle offenses. Most of those charges are resolved in a straightforward way. The offender appears at the courthouse, pays a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of fines, fees, and costs, and the case is closed. But what happens if the offender doesn’t show up on the appointed day or is unwilling or unable to pay?
Under current law, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) must revoke the driver’s license of any person “charged with a motor vehicle offense” who either fails to appear for a trial or hearing (FTA) or fails to comply with an order to pay a fine, penalty, or court costs. (FTC).
For most North Carolinians, driving has become a necessity. We need to drive for work, shopping, medical care, worship, looking after our families, etc. That is what makes the threat of license revocation an effective tool for encouraging motor vehicle offenders to appear in court and pay their fines. Despite that incentive, however, many offenders still fail to appear or fail to pay, and when that happens, mandatory revocation combined with the necessity of driving leads to unintended and undesirable consequences.
One of those unintended consequences is that many offenders who have lost their licenses simply go on driving. More than 1,225,000 people in North Carolina have suspended or revoked licenses. Many, probably most of them, drive anyway. Because they don’t have licenses, they are uninsured, and because most of them are judgment proof, the result is that law-abiding drivers and their insurers end up bearing the costs of accidents caused by people driving with revoked licenses.
Mandatory revocation combined with the necessity of driving also leads to unintended and undesirable consequences when offenders with revoked licenses refrain from diving. Being unable to drive makes it hard to hold down a job. Indeed, driving is a necessity for many jobs, and many employers require a driver’s license as a condition of employment. Offenders who were unable to pay their fines and fees when they were charged are even less able to pay them after they lose their licenses. As a result, thousands of North Carolinians have court debt that accumulates interest and penalties year after year and never gets paid.
Members of the North Carolina General Assembly have been aware of these problems for some time. For example, legislation filed in 2023, House Bill (HB) 888, would have repealed the mandatory license revocation for FTAs and FTCs and immediately reinstated all licenses previously suspended for those reasons. For better or worse, that bill never went very far, probably because it was opposed by the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys (NCCDA).
Last month, Senators Benton Sawrey (R-Johnston), Danny Britt (R-Robeson), and Warren Daniel (R-Burke) filed a much less ambitious bill. Under Senate Bill (SB) 694, mandatory revocation would continue for FTAs and FTCs, and previously suspended licenses would be reinstated only after a three-year waiting period. If, as I presume, the bill has won NCCDA support, it may well be enacted this session.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the new bill would do enough to solve the problems described above. The whole point of amending the law would be to reduce the number of people driving with revoked licenses and make it possible for offenders with FTAs and FTCs to go on working and earning. I know from talking to them that most DAs are much more concerned about FTAs than FTCs. That being the case, a better compromise might treat the two offences differently. Continue revoking licenses for FTAs and impose a three-year waiting period for restoration, but stop revoking licenses for future FTCs and immediately restore all licenses revoked for FTCs in the past.
Given that more than three quarters of all revocations are for FTAs, even that compromise wouldn’t do much to solve the problems. What we really need, I think, is to find a way of punishing FTAs and FTCs that doesn’t involve license revocation. Mandatory community service is one frequently suggested possibility, but I’m not sure that has enough bite. A mandatory weekend in jail would probably have more impact, and others may be able to come up with more creative solutions.
For readers who want to know more about the topic, I recommend this online discussion. The panelists include Warren Daniel (one of SB 694’s sponsors), Matthew Scott (Robeson County district attorney), and Frankie Roberts (executive director of LINC, Inc., an organization that helps ex-offenders reintegrate into society). I had the good fortune of meeting all three of them last year when we participated in a series of “Conversations on Community Safety.” Like the recent panel discussion, those conversations were organized by the North Carolina Leadership Forum and the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School.
For additional information see:
A sensible, bipartisan proposal regarding driver’s license suspensions
